People

Neeltje is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, University of Oxford. She studies developmental drivers of avian social network positions, and is experimentally manipulating early-life conditions to quantify the effects on later social behaviour, both within and across generations, in wild great tits. Neeltje is a Research Associate with the Department of Collective Behaviour, working with Damien Farine on the ontogeny of social behaviour and social learning strategies in zebra finches and guineafowl.

Adriana Maldonado is a Biologist from Colombia working in the Farine lab at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Konstanz, Germany. Adriana is interested in phenotypic plasticity and how variation in social behavior can drive changes in the emergent properties involving population dynamics and ecological interactions. She has worked on behavior and population ecology of capybaras with conservation objectives (MSc, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia) and investigated the sources of individual heterogeneity, such as phenotypic plasticity, and its effects on the long-term population dynamics on yellow-bellied marmots (PhD, University of California Los Angeles, USA).  Her field of work includes ecological modeling, particularly, applying modeling tools to understanding the interplay between population and behavioral ecology and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Adriana uses long-term tracking together with manipulative experiments to study how the social environment influences decision-making and collective behavior. She specifically focuses on the ontogeny of pair-bond formation, how the social environment during this time affects extra-pair mating decisions, and how the decisions of individuals scale up to the mating system.

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Charlotte graduated with a Bachelor in Psychology & Zoology from the University of Bristol. Subsequently, she was a research assistant on the Dwarf Mongoose Project (DMP) in Limpopo, South Africa. This experience reinforced her passion for the field of behavioural ecology and experimental studies in wild animal populations. She completed a MSc by Research on the scent-marking and territorial behaviour of the dwarf mongoose Helogale parvula, with specific focus on short- and longer-term responses to rival intrusions. She spent 6 further months as PM at the DMP before moving from the smallest African carnivore to the largest species of guineafowl: the vulturine guineafowl Acryllium vulturinum. Her role as a field assistant for the Farine Lab at the Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia, Kenya, primarily involved the preliminary data-collection of inter- and intra-group interactions and movement, through field observations and tracking GPS-tagged individuals within the groups. Charlotte is now a PhD student, and budding baboonologist, at the University of Swansea.

Dominic Kiprono Chesire was born and raised in Sesya, Baringo county Kenya. He started schooling in 90s at Kipkaech primary, then Joint Mogotio High school for secondary Education in 2003. In 2009, Dominic was lucky to get fees to see him through a Diploma course at Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute (Naivasha). In 2011, he joined the ornithology section at the National Museums of Kenya (department of Zoology). He has since gained a lot of knowledge on bird trapping and banding, identification, collection skills (bird taxidermy, specimen maintenance, accession and cataloging) and field data collection. In addition, this has has enabled him to travel and work in 90% of existing habitats in Kenya. Dominic worked on data collection with the vulturine guineafowl project at Mpala, Kenya. He now works full-time for the National Museums of Kenya.

Daiping studies the behavioural ecology and genetics of mate choice using captive zebra finch as a model species. After got his master degree at Beijing Normal University which focused on birds’ song in the field, he joined Max Planck Institute for Ornithology for his PhD in 2014. He finished his PhD, titled ‘mate choice and the evolution of female promiscuity in a socially monogamous species’, in 2018. In 2019, Daiping started his postdoc with Bart Kempenaers, Wolfgang Fostmeier and Damien Farine. The main project of his current research is to conduct large-scale mate choice experiments to identify the role of culture transmission and genetic inheritance explaining mate choice in zebra finches. Daiping is based in the Kempenaers department, but works with Damien’s lab to conduct colony-scale tracking of mate choice mechanisms.

Twitter: @DaipingWang

Danai earned her undergraduate Biology degree and her MSc from the University of Patras where she worked in the fields of urban avian diversity, bird migration and stopover ecology. In the meanwhile, she assisted as an intern in Germany, Denmark and Greece on several different projects including decision making in nectar feeding bats, passerine migration and breeding ecology, wildlife monitoring and conservation. During her PhD, she focuses on her main interest which is social structure and collective behaviour in animals. In particular she studies leadership and collective decision-making in captive helmeted and wild vulturine guineafowls, which form remarkably cohesive groups. Interflock interactions, dominance and collective movement attract Danai’s attention. She is also fascinated by field work and non-invasive experiments combined with the application of novel technology to track and analyse animal behaviour.

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Gerry Carter is studying the cognitive and behavioral ecology of cooperative relationships. He is a Humboldt Fellow and was previously a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and a Ford Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Maryland. Gerry is working to develop food-sharing vampire bats as a tractable experimental model for studying how individuals choose and regulate cooperative relationships. He is currently analyzing data from a 22-month experiment with vampire bats that (1) measured how food sharing developed between previous strangers housed together in captivity, (2) manipulated new and old relationships by changing partner behavior, and (3) tracked roosting and foraging association in the same bats released back into the wild. Gerry is now an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University – see https://socialbat.org.

Gustavo is a Colombian biologist who spent the early years of his career studying the birds in the Amazon forests, where he was involved in biological survey and conservation projects, exploring isolated areas with significant gaps of information. More recently, he has worked as a tutor of Biology and Evolution at the University of California in Los Angeles. Gustavo’s main interests are Conservation, Ornithology and Evolution, as well as the use of scientific knowledge to design environmental policies. Among other interests, Gustavo is an enthusiastic birdwatcher, and wildlife and portrait photographer. Gustavo was central to the development of techniques for tracking birds during his Masters in Biology at the University of Konstanz. He now works as a technician in the Aplin lab.

Jana is a undergraduate at the University of Konstanz. She started studying Biological Science in 2013. Because she discovered her fascination for ethology, conducted her Bachelor thesis in the Farine Lab. She studied the role of individuals in collective problem solving in zebra finch flocks. Her research included investigating leadership in zebra finches flocks and finding out whether leadership is important for producing informations within the flock. Jana is now doing her Master’s thesis in the Aplin lab, testing whether cockatoos can individually recognise humans.

John Ewoi has been working at the Mpala Research Centre for over 10 years and has collaborated on numerous projects. Examples include sampling mosquitos for research into malaria, photographing the distinct flank stripes on Grevy zebra to identify individuals, and trapping spider mice in cliffy habitats. His main area of research assisting, however, has been focussed on the Grant’s gazelles for the last 7 years. This involved collecting behavioural data in the field, ear-tagging gazelles, tracking collared gazelles using telemetry and doing lab-based faecal parasite counts. Presently, he has joined the Vulturine Guineafowl Project research group, where his vast experience in the bush has been truly indispensable. The GPS-data is what excites John the most as it will give a unique insight into where these birds roam when no one is watching…

Stephen earned degrees in Zoology and Conservation from the University of Exeter, and shortly after graduating became a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford, where he studied social behaviour in wild songbirds. His interests lie in understanding the foraging dynamics of predators, and exploring how predation as a selective pressure drives the collective behaviour of prey. Stephen completed his PhD on predator foraging strategies with the Farine lab in early 2019. He’s innately fascinated by the natural world, and loves the use of new technologies to explain it – particularly the application of modern tracking devices and 3D-mapping in wild systems. His other interests include science outreach and photography.

Website: www.stephen-lang.co.uk

Twitter: @StephenLang_

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Lea graduated in Biology at the University of Konstanz. For her Bachelors thesis, she studied the social structure of Chilean dolphins (in collaboration with Yaqu Pacha Chile), where she had been involved in the field work for several years. She then spent two years as a Master’s student in the Farine Lab. For her thesis, she created a framework to conceptualize different dimensions of sociality in vertebrates. She is generally interested in social structure and organization of animals, and how they fit into a bigger picture. Lea is now pursuing this interest as a PhD student at the University of Göttingen and the German Primate Center (DPZ).

Sylvester Karimi, locally known as Stalone, has worked with the Ornithology section in the Zoology department of the National Museum of Kenya for the last 16 years. Here he has assisted on avian flu surveillance, annual water fowl census and migration ringing in Tsavo National Park. Lending his expertise to short-term projects has taken him around the country: GPS collaring endemic Aberdare cisticolas in the Aberdare ranges, telemetry tracking the endangered Taita thrush in the Taita hills, ringing Papyrus gonolek by Lake Victoria and surveying Kori bustards in Marsabit. His ornithological work has also taken him on international expeditions along Israeli migration routes, Hungary with the Earthwatch and Taiwan for behavioural observation work, to name but a few! He has been dividing his time between Nairobi and Mpala Research Centre for the last four years. Although it was the grey-capped social weavers that brought him here, he then spent 18 months as a full-time member of the Vulturine Guineafowl Project.

Yohan earned his bachelor’s degree in Biology of organisms and ecosystems from the University of Bordeaux, France. In this time, he worked on the impact of visitors on a group of lemurs in Asson’s zoo, France, and on the impact of poaching on the frequentation of the Langoué Baï by the large fauna in the Ivindo National park, Gabon. He is now completing his Masters’ degree in Behavioral ecology and wildlife management at the University of Burgundy. As part of his studies, he has worked on a project at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, England, investigating the role of habitat on the hunting success of wild cheetahs. He is particularly fascinated by collective behaviours in animal societies and the social relations underpinnings them. To gain experience in this area, he recently joined the Farine lab where he will be investigating the influence of social relationships on collective movement, using data from high-resolution tracking of zebra finches.